KARIN DAHL

ORNAMENTAL INVASIVES

MATERIALS

Silk ivy, watercolor paint, wire, stakes, twine

CONSIDERATIONS

How do materials and place infer meaning to artwork?
In what ways do the paths merge public and private spaces?
Ivy is an invasive, non-native plant that is a ubiquitous part of the Berkeley landscape. Where did it come from?

REFERENCE SOURCES

Friends of Five Creeks
The Third Landscape, Gilles Clément

ARTWORK NOTES

What species belong in a particular place and how adaptation and assimilation shifts a landscape are key ideas embedded in Karin Dahl’s Ornamental Invasives installation. As a cartographer, Karin is interested in the organization and categorization of space. Her survey zones along Tamalpais Path reveal the evolution of a new type of colorful ivy growing amidst an existing bed of the imported plant that is now prevasive across Berkeley. If you look closely you can see places where it is moving beyond the study area and into the surrounding hillside.

ARTIST BACKGROUND

Karin Dahl is an artist, anthropologist and cartographer born at the edge of the Finnish archipelago. She was raised in Seattle, WA and is a decade plus long resident of the Bay Area. Karin holds a B.A. in Anthropology from Mills College and an M.A. in Anthropology with emphasis on Archaeology and Material Culture Studies from San Francisco State. Her work explores convergences between cultural, natural, and material phenomena.